Turkey-Iran relations, 1997 to 2000: the Kurdish and Islamist questions

This article focuses on the bilateral relations between Turkey and Iran fro m 1997 to 10 June 2000, terminating with the ECO conference held in Tehran. The omni-balancing international relations theory of Steven David is used to explain Turkey's relations with Iran. Six major developments which are i nfluenced by the Kurdish and Islamist questions are used to emphasise signi ficant aspects of the two countries' relations: 1) the `Tale of the Two May ors', which refers to how the cases of the Mayor of Istanbul, Receb Tayyib Erdogan, and the Mayor of Tehran, Golam Hossein Karbaschi, were covered in the press; 2) the Kavakci affair, which refers to the issue of Merve Kavakc i, the female member of the Turkish parliament who raised a political fires torm by wearing a headscarf (turban) into the Turkish parliament building i n April 1999; 3) the July `student' demonstrations in Iran, particularly in Tehran; 4) the Turkish bombing raid of 17 July 1999; 5) the Hizbullah affa ir in Turkey; and 6) the arrest of the killers in May 2000, with alleged ti es to Iran, of prominent Turks. I suggest that none of the above had a stor my impact on the wider geopolitical, geostrategic and geoeconomic interests of the two countries, especially in Central Asia, the Caucasus, Iraq and t he eastern Mediterranean. I confirm that the omni-balancing international r elations theory is an adequate model to explain the bilateral relations bet ween the two countries.